*The Journal's first page is crumpled and worn. The text has grayed slightly, but is nonetheless readable.*

Log 1.

Number of us brought here today.
A new job, we've been told.
Analyzed task today seems to be a cleansing of the instated aura of the current area. Rather tainted one, according to reports.
Area appears to be a decrepit manor of some sort.
One must wonder why this building needs cleansing
But our employers have not said a word about the whys.
Just as well, looks like an in and out job - dead houses like this usually are. Just need some light in here, our first steps in earlier today caused our

*Rest of text is 'scrawled', appearing more as slashes then actual, structured letters. This crosses over for a few sentences before leading back into text..*

*The second page is a bit grayer then the first. A few dots, of unknown source, grace the edges.*

Log 2.

Set up, again. Yesterday, nothing of note. All quiet so far, no sign of astral disturbances just yet. No questioning employers, they push us still. So we can only look more.

We've mainly just seen the Front Halls - odd as they are, completely blank, empty and quiet. No dirt at all. Very long, all of them. Decided not to enter any individual rooms just yet. Will do so soon, after entire bottom foundation is laid out by our mapmaker. He says that the original designer must have had a simple mind.

*The third page deterioates just slightly in quality from the page before it, as the text appears to fade directly through the paper. It still retains readability, however.*

Log 3.

We've set up again. Flares have been established by the Mages on our team, if only to prevent any more accidents from happening - apparently a few have already taken place, one of our own disappeared just today, an hour after Moonrise.

Because of this, we've been told to hurry up and start moving in on the center of this manor - if only to find that the doors have been sealed against us by something on the other side. No matter how much force the entire team mustered, nothing gave.

Odd, but we have been informed that a few more Mages have been assigned to this area and will be here soon. Hopefully, they will be able to add enough bluster to what we've got already..

Maybe then we can crack our way through. Until then, we will have to scope out whatever we can. . .

Seriously, an error like that jolts me out of the setting. Especially in a story like this, because I get a mental image of a bunch of people holding their ears to the walls of a house, which rather spoils the spooky effect of the journal.

*The next page seems to build in quality from the last. Apparently, who was ever writing this increased his firmness upon writing. However, the curious gray dots bordering the page persist.*

Log 4.

No word from the backup Mages yet. Still apparently on the road. In the meantime, people have been getting restless - our days are spent patrolling what we can of the manor, which is the same ground that we have retread over the past few days

- and suspicious - our campsite, set up just out of perimeter, has been ravaged once already, apparently during company slumber. Patrolling guards reported no sign of an intruder that would work as such - thus having no explanation for why what just happened, happened.

Because of this, some have started to complain about the apparently sloppy protocol and careless setup that we have guiding our mission here. The cleansing that we were to perform has not been accomplished yet, and time has already passed. Our backup? What backup? As written, no sign of them yet.

And to have our camps attacked yet to have no way to trace the attacker has been another source of complaints from the general voice.

Thusly we are all getting restless, some more then others, but no real action has been taken yet on any of our parts. Frustration has settled in, though.

.. personally, I think this is all just a joke, and was probably an excuse to clean higher up's hands a bit for the time being. But I don't feel like voicing as such for the time being - tension is already too thick around here. <p> <span style="color:red;font-family:Arial;font-size:x-small;">Son Gohan wants you to visit the</span> DB(Z) Manga Shrine!</p>

*The gray dots seem to.. disappear on this page. The paper itself seems to be slightlier wispier.. crisper and lighter.. then the other pages before it.*

Log 5.

The Mages haven't shown up yet. And we've received no word from them, at all. Tension is continuing to build. The leaders of the project have been personally seeing to the calming down of those who need it. The chance for monetary gain, as they try to explain, should compensate for any meagre sense of fear you receive from this place.

This did not help any when one of us disappeared. It was the new guy - the one who babbled on. Not that any of us ever understood what he was trying to say - never really cared to try to write any of it down before - but as the days went on, he did seem to be getting more and more nervous. Almost as if he saw something slowly coming for him.. but lacked the words to describe it.

So the guy has disappeared. The camp's pretty much been broken into chaos. All over this one dumb house, which we haven't even been able to explore further just yet.

I guess we'll see how this crap settles out. In the meantime, I'm going to sit out and wait.. <p>I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.- Frank Lloyd Wright

Dude. It took a while, but I'm glad to see you're back to writing this. ^_^

The way you've brought the situation to a head is nifty, but it'd be nice to get a better idea of what the camp is like. You say it's in chaos, and that someone's gone, but it doesn't seem to affect the writer of the diary much. Maybe we could get a bit more of his perspective on all this soon?

BTW, I like the way you describe the paper all this is written on. <p>English does not have a word for what you do to do a dead thing to make it stop chasing you. Clearly, you cannot kill that which is dead. But until Mr. Webster comes up with replacement, we are forced to render dead that which is dead. - Just Call Me Fed

The man wants a new pair of pants. What's wrong with that? - Crawling Reshiki</p>

*This page is as thin and wispy as the ones before. It is almost transparent. Yet it holds together well enough within the hand..*

Log 6.

So, yeah. We had some violence. A few of our guys freaked out and nearly massacred the leaders of this project - good bit of blood showing up. Almost too much, in fact. Those who snapped had to be held back. Those who were still able to speak had to calm down the rest. Some were getting close to being violent, regardless - they had to be put down for now, too.

So for now our number of people who are conscious and sane has dwindled.

Ironically enough, one of the mages arrived shortly after. Their words were something along the lines of "The fuck?"
Looks like this is only gonna get longer..

I really like that last paragraph. <p>------------------
Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.
</p>

*The wispiness of before is turning to blackness. Light.. but definite blackness. A slight curl has begun to form in the page..*

Log 7.

The Mages have all arrived. It took a while to explain everything that had occurred in their delayed arrival. A few of the others began to curse them out for being so late - one or two actually threatened them. There WAS a general consensus of anger over their lateness. Eventually, the reminder that we were being PAID for spending our time here settled back in. The Mages helped remind everyone of that..

*this line is written in a smaller text, as if a subthought*
<span style="font-size:xx-small;">though I wonder how useful the money is when you are dead</span>

However, the mages said something odd.. they said they had been scheduled to arrive.. at the time that they had arrived. We had been informed of differently, by our leaders. Yet the Mages would not lie.. they are being paid by the same source. One of our leaders, when questioned, maintained that our employer and payer was unreachable at this point in time.. but insisted that we would be paid.

*small text again*
<span style="font-size:xx-small;">mild resentment arose again but what can you do, everyone's getting mad about every inconvenience and they have gotten jack for their concerns</span>

Right.. well.. when the discussions were finally settled, it came time to take a night's rest. The mages agreed to take a preliminary look at the house before joining us... specifically, those goddamned sealed doors.. see if they could cover any more territory before morning returned. The mapmaker, who had lately taken to vegetating due to lack of activity.. was summoned to join the Mages.

Maybe.. all our troubles were worth it, then. If the Mages can get through.. we can cover the rest

*The curl is fiercer on this page.. and must actually be held down in order to read the rest of the text*

Log 8.

Well.. I didn't sleep too well. Something has been panging inside my head all goddamned night... almost as if someone were attempting to reach inside my skull and toss around the internal bits and pieces.

Meanwhile, it seemed like the rest of the guys had settled down after last night. Well, they did, until another guy turned up missing. Clean disappeared. We're not even in that goddamned house and people are disappearing!

The Mages came back with Mapmaker in tow as the leaders did their usual work of trying to calm the herd. The Mages said they had been unable to find anything special. In fact, they stated that all they was the empty outer shell of the house - nothing inside. The mapmaker himself was bitching about 'wasted time' and flashed a drawing of a box with an arrow pointing into it towards us.

... what the fuck? Honestly I don't see what's going on but
*an ink spill is here - apparently, whatever the writer was writing has been blotted out. This goes on for a few lines* and this panging headache of mind is fucking killing me.

I don't want to go to bed again. Most everyone else is going to go back to the house.. one of the leaders told me to take a rest.. what the fuck, take a rest. I don't want to take a rest! Not with my pain, not with it driving me <span style="font-size:xx-small;">to hell</span> and.. shit, there it goes again. <p>Creation: COMPREHENDING STUPIDITY.</p>

The official song of this thread of "A Misty Sea of Forests" (Noriyuk Idaware; Grandia OST)

The beginning fits this so frickin' well; it came up as I read it.

Nice work, End. Hit me to read the whole thing at once later. <p>------------------
Greetings, large black person. Let us not forget to form a team up together and go into the country to inflict the pain of our karate feets on some ass of the giant lizard person.
</p>

Indeed, the last few times you've posted to this I've gone back and reread everything up until the latest post, 'cause it makes more sense that way. I really likes it, plays a lot of head games. ^__^ <p>"Strenghten your lyre and sing
The hymn of death
The sky opens to us
They fly to the ray"

*The page forms a perfect spiral, holding a perfect seashell formation despite the fact that the page had to be pressed in order to close the book.

Upon unrolling the page, the text rolls out neatly...*

I was told to take a breather. After struggling with my fucking head<span style="font-size:xx-small;">splint</span>ache for about five minutes, I decided to settle down and take a nap. What could it hurt?

Fucking plenty. I'm still not sure if I was dreaming or not.. but my skin, my flesh, <span style="font-size:xx-small;">my blood</span> felt as if it were tearing itself clean away from my bones as I lay there, eyes shut. I wasn't laying there, though. I was sitting, writing in this journal. In order to form each letter, each word, each sentence, I reached downward and ripped a portion of my sleeping form away. The pages reacted, but I continued to do this. I slept, unable to prevent this from happening. After all, I was busy writing.

I remember the first few lines...

Number of us brought here today. A new job, we've been told. Analyzed task today seems to be a cleansing of the instated aura of the current area. Rather tainted one, according to reports.

I can't remember the rest, now that I'm sure I'm awake... I don't want to look back... I don't know what I'll see... I look at myself, I am still whole. I don't seem to be missing anything...

they're coming close the book close the book

I'm gonna go (there is a deliberate line-sized blank space here) check on the others. I look, I still see day outside. Shouldn't be too hard to catch up with the others...

*This page is... in normal shape. There is nothing abnormal about it. However, the writer seems to have lost any semblance of grammatical quality he once had.*

they saw it they saw me. it wasn't a dream. my arms have been torn to the bone. flesh and muscle alike. it doesnt hurt i tell them it needs to be done for the writing. the blood helps the words sink in the flesh helps placate the page the pencils no good anymore cant they see that?

they left a man to stay with me and take the book away. they left and i snapped part of my bone away. my fingers scraped at the task but it was loud enough to attract his attention. the man came to me, and i plunged the bone into his eye. he tried to scream, but i couldn't have that. they might take the book away and that's all i have left. so i stabbed another bone into his throat and dug it in until i could hear the sounds of snapping, gooshing. wet. so wet. i brought him down and went to work on his arms. i needed more for the writing

i overhead them out there. they were talking about a house. apparently there's nothing wrong with it. some people called the mages were complaining about how long it took to get there and how nothing had come of it. the mapmaker thinks someone is fooling with him, too. he asks if there is another house out there, because this one doesn't seem to be much more than simplicity from a simple mind

. . . i've seen them, too. the others. those who were held back, and the talking man. they've told me that there isn't something in the house. it's the land. the land around us. nothing of note happened in the house... it all happened within the camp

<span style="font-size:xx-small;">i want to go below</span>

*This is the last page of the book. The rest of the pages appear to be blank, beyond random blood spots and tears in the paper.*

*This was an official report, made by the Doman Guard upon their investigation of the site.*

OFFICIAL REPORT

This is an Official Report of the Doman Kingdom, made in the name of Our King Charles Domanada, in the year of 1314, on this month of Gaerara, on this day of Dammasus. This investigation was headed by Sir Devon Smith.

During a random patrolling of the external reaches of the Doman Kingdom's territory, we encountered a mysterious sight: an abandoned camp site.

This book is one of the last pieces of evidence of a team of mercenaries that apparently disappeared entirely in this location. Various tents, equipment, and clothing were found in the vicinity, yet they bear no visual sign of ever being used.

The supposed 'house' that the author of the previous pages mentions simply does not exist. There is no sign that such a house has ever existed here. Given that this team acted indepently of Doman authority, there is no way to verify the employer of this group.

No astral abnormalities appear to exist here, either. Due to the confusing circumstances, this case remains open.

*Post-Fic*

Yeah, the ending's a bit tacked on, but I wanted to bring an end to the thing. Thanks for all of the comments, guys, and I'm glad to see that a number of you (whether still present or not) actually enjoyed it.

Shame that the Sweet Home RP never worked out... oh well. <p>So I smile and pray upon a star...</p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=crawlingreshiki>Crawling] at: 2/10/06 17:00